Pastors and bankers committing suicide

Nearly a year ago, Gabriela Segura, M.D. sounded the alarm that stress and depression have reached pandemic levels in America. She cited data from an article by David Kupelian that:

Fully one-third of U.S. employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all “millennials” (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder.

The CDC reported that antidepressant use in the U.S. has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans aged 18-44. As many as 11% of all Americans aged 12 and older are currently taking SSRI antidepressants — highly controversial, mood-altering psychiatric drugs with the FDA’s “suicidality” warning label and alarming correlation with school shooters. Women are especially prone to depression, with almost 1 in 4 (23%) of U.S. women in their 40s and 50s now taking antidepressants.

A recent rash of suicides by pastors and bankers is symptomatic of the pandemic stress and depression.

PASTORS

1. Teddy Parker

Teddy Parker

On Nov. 10, 2013, Teddy Parker, 42, senior pastor of Bibb Mount Zion Baptist Church in Georgia, shot himself in the head outside his home while his 800 member congregation waited for him to conduct the Sunday service.

International Business Times reports that just days before, Parker had told his congregation that he felt disconnected from God. His body was discovered by his wife, Larrinecia, in the driveway of their house. Houston County Sheriff confirmed that he died from a “self-inflicted gunshot.”

2. Ed Montgomery

Jackie & Ed Montgomery

On Dec. 7, 2013, Ed Montgomery, a pastor at the Full Gospel Christian Assemblies International Church in Hazel Crest, Illinois, who was grieving the death of his wife a year ago, reportedly shot himself inside his Matteson home in front of his pleading son.

The Christian Postreports that Montgomery had said he was hearing the voice and footsteps of his late wife, Prophetess Jackie Montgomery. He later died from the gunshot wound.

3. Isaac Hunter

Isaac Hunter

On Dec. 10, 2013, Isaac Hunter, former pastor of Summit Church in Orlando, Fla. and the son of Obama’s “spiritual adviser” — Northland Church Senior Pastor Joel Hunter — died from an apparent suicide.

Hunter founded Summit Church in 2002. It has since become one of the fastest-growing churches in Central Florida, with five locations and an estimated 5,000 worshippers. The church grew out of a ministry the younger Hunter started at his father’s megachurch. In 2012, Isaac Hunter resigned after admitting to an affair with a former staffer.

BANKERS

1. William Broeksmit

William Broeksmit

Bloomberg reports that on Jan. 26, 2014, William Broeksmit, 58, a recently retired executive at Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) who worked at Merrill Lynch in the 1990s, was found hanging in his home on Evelyn Gardens in London. Deutsche Bank spokesman Michael Golden didn’t give a cause for Broeksmit’s death and authorities aren’t treating the death as suspicious.

Broeksmit had built a reputation in “interest rate swaps” at Continental Bank in Chicago, which led Merrill Lynch to recruit him to be head of global equity derivatives. He was risk manager at Deutsche Bank AG. Interest rate swaps are contracts to exchange fixed-rate payments for floating-rate ones over a period of years.

2. Gabriel Magee

Two days later, on Jan. 28, 2014, Gabriel Magee, 39, a JPMorgan vice president in technology operations, fell to his death from the 33 stories-high JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s London headquarters at 25 Bank Street in the Canary Wharf area onto a 9th-floor roof.

Magee was not a trader or a banker but had worked since 2004 in JPMorgan’s technology support department; he had previously worked as an application developer for Intel. Described by a source as “a respected employee, well thought of by managers,” Magee was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

3. Mike Dueker

Mike Dueker

Two days later, on Jan. 30, 2014, Mike Dueker, 50, the chief economist at Russell Investments, was found dead at the side of a highway that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state.

Bloomberg reports that police said Dueker might have jumped over a 4-foot fence before falling down a 40- to 50-foot embankment, and that his death appeared to be a suicide.

Dueker was reported missing on Jan. 29, and a group of friends and law enforcement had been searching for him. Reportedly the economist was having problems at work, but Russell Investments spokeswoman Jennifer Tice said Dueker was in good standing and declined further comments.

Dueker had worked at Seattle-based Russell for five years, and developed a business-cycle index that forecast economic performance. He was previously an assistant vice president and research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where he published dozens of research papers over the past two decades, many on monetary policy. St. Louis Fed’s website ranks him among the top 5% of economists by number of works published.

4. Richard Talley

Richard Talley

David Migoya reports for The Denver Post that on Feb. 4, 2014, Richard Talley, 57, founder and CEO of American Title, was found dead in his home from 7-8 self-inflicted wounds from a nail-gun fired into his torso and head.

Both Talley and the company he’d founded in 2001 were under investigation by state insurance regulators at the time of his death. It’s unclear whether Talley’s suicide was related to the investigation by the Colorado Division of Insurance, which regulates title companies.

Before coming to Colorado, Talley was a former regional financial officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert in Chicago, where he met his wife, Cheryl, a vice president at the company. When the two married in 1989, their wedding announcement in the Chicago Tribune described Talley as“a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic swimming team.” But a spokeswoman for USA Swimming said Talley was not on the team.

Thank you Dr. Eowyn for this most important post. Today, I will pray before the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament through the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, for all people who have committed suicide; that Our sweet Lord give them mercy and assistance. Please God, also help their families, friends and loved ones.

“…found dead in his home from 7-8 self-inflicted wounds from a NAIL-GUN fired into his torso and head.” Good grief! It would take a LOT of desperation to choose a NAIL-GUN as your “suicide weapon of choice.” :( Odd, too, re the false Olympic Swimming Team claim. Maybe the guy had a habit of lying throughout his life for whatever reason. Maybe his lies caught up with him.

A few years ago I did a lot of reading up on suicide statistics & methods used by both genders due to the alleged suicide of Robert Kennedy Jr.’s wife, Mary, whose story was so heartwrenching (HER story, not his!). My heart ached for DAYS reading about her life. I was suspicious because I didn’t think, at that time, that women used “hanging” & other profoundly “physical” means to suicide themselves (especially because she had access to RX drugs & alcohol, supposedly), but had thought MEN tend to opt for the more “violent” means. Turns out more women than I imagined DO use hanging, but still men moreso than women. However, I also learned that PARTIALLY hanging yourself is SUPPOSED to help relieve DEPRESSION, & that some people who learn about that & are suffering from severe depression try it but don’t do it right & end up killing themselves in the process. Whether Mary was attempting to do that we do not know. (I don’t know where my notes & links are about all that, too much switching back & forth between computer & smartphone to keep up with it anymore, but it was a detailed suicide statistics type of website, maybe the WHO.)

Thanks for compiling the above list; I had no idea about the pastors! The one who went ahead & killed himself in front of his son had to be in bad shape emotionally. It makes one wonder if ANDROPAUSE (male menopause) is getting worse for the menfolk (even men suffer from Estrogen Dominance due to all the petrochemicals in plastics, shampoos; soy in processed foods, etc.).

And then there IS STRESS as you mentioned, unrelenting in so many cases. Probably EXPECTATION (& trying to live up to it) has a lot to do with it, especially for men. (Btw, chronic stress = stress hormones full blown = can make you naturally feel “alienated from God.” If only they realized, THIS TOO SHALL PASS!)

Humiliation (from having an affair); Grieving (re a deceased spouse), etc. … I suppose those would be “good enough” reasons to kill yourself, maybe… maybe moreso for men in pastoral positions because they felt like they should have had “more faith,” or a stronger will to resist, etc.

With all that said, I’ll put on my “conspiracy cap” for a minute, due to no mention of “suicide notes,” & due to the professions of these men, ie, banking & religion. Maybe the ones in banking/finance learned things they should not have & refused to “tow the party line” & were “dealt with accordingly” (throwing people out of windows is one of their favorites; & jumping a short 4-foot fence but ending up rolling down a 40-50-foot embankment? Surely the man looked over the other side before jumping the 4-foot fence? Maybe he was forcefully & bodily thrown-over the little fence! Rev. Ted Pike’s wife, also in the NorthWest area, supposedly met a similar demise a few years ago, which was also blamed on suicide. He claims it was demons harrassing her for many years, causing her depression, due to the expose’ work he does. However, it could just as well have been the humans whom he “exposes” who got sick & tired of it & hoped to shut him up by taking out his wife. Ted was supposedly asleep in the daytime when his wife disappeared & supposedly “jumped over a bridge.”). As for the pastors, Freemasonry has a big stranglehold in many Christian churches. Get involved in that mess & Lucifer’s henchmen may come calling eventually. Of course the newspapers report very “sane” explanations for all these tragic deaths, so only the Lord knows for sure, & His feeling is…

“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” (Psalms 116:15).

I surely don’t know. Maybe if it was a chainlink fence & had “pointy” wires at the top, his shirt or pants leg or even his shoe may have gotten snagged which could have thrown his weight off balance as he went over the fence, so he ended up falling & rolling downward uncontrollably. Maybe he was just out jogging or whatever & never meant to end up dead. :-/

Not to make light of the deaths in this article, but does anyone else think maybe more people are on more meds because we are forced to watch commercials for meds every day and decide we need them? I think there are truly people who need them but I also think we are an overmedicated population too. Big Pharma gets rich and we take pills that have more side effects than they can list during a two minute add.

Totally agree with you both re the drug commercials on TV. TPTB are putting ideas into people’s heads that they would never have thought of otherwise, & now people go tell the DOCTOR what they need vs the doctor telling them. Like social engineering, you could call it “pharmaceutical engineering.” Follow the $$$ !